SEA DAY 2

Show last night's was excellent and featured ship's singers and dancers plus a couple who are international ballroom dancing champions. Most men were wearing tuxes as was formal night. I was in gym by 8am and went to lectures at 10 & 11. First was on "world affairs as related to Pacific region" and second was on "History of South Pacific". Mexican food buffet by pool for our lunch. Tonight we have dinner reservations in the French speciality restaurant. We are looking forward to tonight's show as 4 of the ship's male singers will be doing Frankie Valli and Four Seasons music. Captain is opening the bridge from 1 to 3pm today for visits. Was hoping to be able to watch NFL playoffs today but so far no luck.

Sea Day 1

Ship rocked and rolled all last night and today. Haven't noticed anyone being seasick as these are experienced cruisers. Dinner last night in Prime 7, the speciality steak restaurant, was good but still think Chops on RCL is better. Called reception desk again last night to ask them turn down music in Horizon Lounge just below us. They did! We both slept well despite ship's moving around. After room service small breakfast we both headed to gym. Then after showering we headed to program by cruise director talking about what to expect on the WC. After a nice lunch in dining room we took a dance lesson-rumba. Looks like I need lots of practice! It's now 3pm and will go back to gym around 4pm for a little more exercise. Tonight is cocktail party hosted by the Captain. We hear that he gives an interesting speech so will probably go. Tonight is formal attire so will be in my tux imitating James Bond. Ship's singers and dancers will be tonight's entertainment at 9:30 show. Captain is doing something different and have never heard of it being done this way but clock will move ahead 30 minutes tonight. He does the 30 minute clock moves instead of normal one hour moves. We will be transiting several time zones as we head southwesternly. Hope every one has a wonderful Friday night, WE WILL.

Gala Dinner & Show

Regent sent a limo to the Hilton yesterday at 12:30 to bring us to the ship. Went through security check then right on the ship where we were greeted with champaign and then checked in. After getting suite keys we went to the Compass Rose restaurant (dining room) for lunch. We were allowed in our suites at 2pm and some of our luggage was already there. The rest showed up within an hour except for one bag. Of course it was the one with my tuxes, but more inmportantly, my underwear! I called reception desk and they began as search to try and find it. At 6pm they found it. I had put 761 on tag instead of 671. My mistake! Just happy to see it. We got dressed and left suite at 6:30 for the Gala Dinner in the Compass Rose. I took picture of the menu. We both had to tenderloin which was absolutely delicious. Washed it down with some chardonay and cabernet. Then on to the show room for Jay Leno and the Beach Boys. Leno started at 9pm and did a 45 minute dialogue that was soooooooo funny. I have to admit I am not a fan of his but his show was excellent. Laughing so hard we had tears. Right after he finished the Beach Boys began singing and did an hour show. Great music! Did all their old hits and there are alot of them. People were up dancing in front of the stage including yours truly! The place was going wild. Needless to say the entire evening was a special one and great way to kick off our world cruise. Unfortunately, right below our suite is the Horizon Lounge and they had band playing until about 1am. I called 3 times about it last night and talked with cruise director this morning. He assured me that would not happen again. Our suite is in very back of ship and we feel a vibration from enginges or something. I was expecting it as people on CruiseCritic.com had talked about it. As it is now, it should not bother us. Will get use to it. We have run into several crewmembers that were on the Regent Mariner (our Alaska cruise this summer) so is nice seeing old friends. Paolo is maitre d here and remembers us so have an "in" if we need reservations at steakhouse or French restaurant onboard. In fact, at breakfast he made Prime 7, the steakhouse, reservations for tonight. Ship departure has been delayed 2 hours due to loading more food. Speaking of food, time for lunch!

FINALLY!!!! We are now in San Diego. Our limo showed up 25 minutes early this morning, but of course, Rebecca was not ready yet. (See Pictures) Marjorie, Bobbie, & Jim, our neighbors, braved the cold morning to take some pictures and see us off. We left house a few minutes before 8am so was at DFW by 8:30. No lines at either AA check-in counter or security check. Flight left on time and arrived in San Diego 20 minutes early. We were very happy to see that our 4 checked bags also arrived with us. Since we flew first class our bags were first off the airplane and first to arrive in baggage claim. Grabbed a taxi to go to our over night hotel, the Hilton Bay Front. Our 4 checked and 2 carry on bags barely fit in the taxi. Hilton upgraded our room since I am a "diamond" member of Hilton and we have a lovely corner room with view of bay and ocean. People in elevator made comment that we had a lot of luggage and I said, "Ya, and this is only half of it". TSA had opened and inspected one of Rebecca's checked bags and it was a mess. She was NOT a happy camper. We are both very tired as I woke up at 12:30am and Rebecca at 3am. We were just too excited to sleep. Now we have 4 months to catch up on rest. Going out for some good seafood tonight.

270 lbs of luggage heading to San Diego

Excitement level is getting high now as only a week from tomorrow (Jan 12th) we fly to San Diego. This morning LuggageFree picked up 270 lbs of our "stuff" (see photos) and is shipping it to San Diego. Next time we see it, hopefully, it will be in our suite on the ship. This service was included in cost of the cruise. Since we have first class tickets to SAN we can each check two more 50 lb bags at no charge. I figure the rest of our "stuff" should weigh less than 200 lbs. Question is: Where are we going to put it in our suite??

Pictures update

Bare with me. I am learning more about this blog site to make it easier for you. Upper left corner now has "Check Out Our Cruise Pictures" section. Just click on "World Cruise Album" under it and photos will hopefully come up for you.

Cruise Pictures

In prepration to download our pictures taken during the cruise I will be using the following site. Just click on it to view pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/caricky767/2010WORLDCRUISE?authkey=Gv1sRgCIDBitOUsOuIiQE#